70 free British History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
56 free British history trivia questions with answers. Two thousand years of British history in fifty-six questions. This quiz runs from Claudius's Roman invasion and Boudica's revolt through Alfred and the Vikings, Hastings and the Domesday Book, Magna Carta, the Black Death, the Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the Gunpowder Plot, the Civil War and Cromwell, the Great Fire, the Union of 1707, Trafalgar and Waterloo, Victoria's empire, the suffragettes, Dunkirk and the Blitz, the birth of the NHS, Thatcher, the Falklands, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit. Easy questions ask what happened in 1066 and how many times Henry VIII married; the hard ones want the poll-tax rate that sparked the Peasants' Revolt, the car park where Richard III turned up and the horse that killed Emily Davison. Written for history buffs, pub-quiz teams, GCSE revisers and anyone who watched too many period dramas. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the events, monarchs and battles involved, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Roman emperor launched the successful invasion of Britain in AD 43?
Claudius
Caesar had raided in 55 and 54 BC, but Claudius's invasion began the near four-century occupation. He came over himself briefly, reportedly with elephants.
Q 02Boudica, who led a revolt against Rome around AD 60, was queen of which tribe?
The Iceni
Her forces burned Colchester, London and St Albans before being crushed. A statue of her in a chariot stands by Westminster Bridge.
Q 03Roughly how long is Hadrian's Wall?
73 miles
It runs coast to coast from the Tyne to the Solway Firth and is the largest Roman archaeological feature in Britain. Work began in AD 122.
Q 04In roughly which year did Roman rule in Britain finally end?
AD 410
The legions were pulled out to defend the continent, and the emperor Honorius reportedly told the British cities to look to their own defence. The Anglo-Saxon migrations followed.
Q 05The 793 raid marking the start of the Viking Age in Britain hit which Northumbrian monastery?
Lindisfarne
The monks eventually fled with the body of St Cuthbert, which ended up in Durham Cathedral. The island is still cut off from the mainland at high tide.
Q 06At which 878 battle did Alfred the Great decisively defeat the Vikings, leading to the Danelaw?
Edington
After the battle Alfred stood godfather to the Viking leader Guthrum at his baptism. He is the only English king known as 'the Great'.
Q 07The Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk was excavated in which year?
1939
Self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown dug it at the invitation of landowner Edith Pretty, on the eve of the Second World War. The famous helmet is held by the British Museum.
Q 08Which Danish king ruled England, Denmark and Norway in what historians call the North Sea Empire?
Cnut
He is the king of the legend about commanding the tide to stop, usually told as a lesson to flattering courtiers rather than an act of vanity.
Q 09On what date was the Battle of Hastings fought?
14 October 1066
Harold Godwinson had marched south after beating a Norwegian army at Stamford Bridge less than three weeks earlier. The fighting lasted from about 9 am until dusk.
Q 10How is Harold II traditionally said to have died at Hastings?
An arrow to the eye
The story rests on a Bayeux Tapestry figure and on chroniclers writing decades later; historians still argue about which figure is Harold.
Q 11The Bayeux Tapestry is technically not a tapestry at all. What is it?
An embroidered cloth
It is stitched in wool on linen and runs nearly 70 metres. It is still kept in Bayeux, Normandy.
Q 12William the Conqueror's great survey of England, the Domesday Book, was completed in which year?
1086
Its nickname came from the sense that its judgments were as final as the Last Judgment. It is held at the National Archives in Kew.
Q 13Which Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered in his own cathedral in December 1170?
Thomas Becket
Four knights acted after Henry II's outburst against him. His shrine became England's greatest pilgrimage site, the destination in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Q 21What did Tower of London workmen find in a box under a staircase in 1674, long linked to the Princes in the Tower?
Two small skeletons
The bones were reburied in Westminster Abbey on Charles II's orders. Whether they belong to Edward V and his brother has never been proven.
Q 22How many times did Henry VIII marry?
Six
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Only Jane Seymour gave him a legitimate son.
Q 23What title did Henry VIII take under the Acts of Supremacy after his break with Rome?
Supreme Head of the Church of England
Q 14King John sealed Magna Carta in June 1215 at which riverside meadow?
Runnymede
Within weeks the pope annulled it and the barons went to war. Only four copies of the 1215 charter survive.
Q 15At which 1314 battle did Robert the Bruce defeat Edward II's English army?
Bannockburn
It secured Bruce's hold on the Scottish throne, though England did not formally recognise Scottish independence until 1328.
Q 16The Black Death reached England in June 1348 through which port?
Weymouth
The first known case was a sailor arriving from Gascony. The plague went on to kill perhaps 40 to 60 per cent of the population.
Q 17The third poll tax that triggered the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was set at what flat rate per person?
12 pence
Wat Tyler was killed at Smithfield when the Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth, stabbed him during a parley with the fourteen-year-old Richard II.
Q 18Which day of the calendar gave its name to the 1415 battle where Henry V's archers routed the French?
St Crispin's Day
English and Welsh longbowmen made up nearly 80 per cent of Henry's army. Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech is set the morning of the battle.
Q 19In the Wars of the Roses, which side was symbolised by the red rose?
House of Lancaster
York took the white. Henry VII combined the two into the Tudor rose after marrying Elizabeth of York.
Q 20Richard III, killed at Bosworth in 1485, was found in 2012 buried under what in Leicester?
A car park
He was the last English king to die in battle. DNA from a living descendant of his sister confirmed the identification in 2013.
Ironically the pope had earlier named him Defender of the Faith for attacking Luther, a title British monarchs still use.
Q 24At which castle was Mary, Queen of Scots beheaded in 1587?
Fotheringhay
She had spent eighteen and a half years as Elizabeth I's prisoner. Her son James inherited Elizabeth's throne sixteen years later.
Q 25In which year did the Spanish Armada sail against England?
1588
Fireships scattered the fleet at Calais and the wind did the rest, driving it around Scotland and Ireland where many ships were wrecked.
Q 26Where did Elizabeth I deliver her famous speech to the troops in August 1588?
Tilbury
The speech contains the line about having 'the heart and stomach of a king'. By then the Armada had already been driven off.
Q 27How many barrels of gunpowder was Guy Fawkes guarding when he was found under the House of Lords in 1605?
36
He was caught late on 4 November after an anonymous letter tipped off the authorities. The cellars are still ceremonially searched before each State Opening.
Q 28How many years did Charles I rule without calling a Parliament, in the so-called Personal Rule?
Eleven
He funded the Personal Rule with devices like Ship Money, and it ended only when he needed cash to fight the Scots. Civil war followed within two years.
Q 29Charles I was executed in January 1649 outside which London building?
The Banqueting House, Whitehall
He reportedly wore two shirts so he would not shiver and appear afraid. The Rubens ceiling he had commissioned was above him as he walked out.
Q 30What title did Oliver Cromwell hold from December 1653 until his death?
Lord Protector
After the Restoration his body was dug up and hanged at Tyburn on the anniversary of Charles I's execution, and his head sat on a spike for years.